Congratulations on the release of Auto2, which might I add has been a long time coming! Err... sorry I didn't mean to tell you off in the opening line but you can't go anywhere because I've stolen your teleportation device. You are, Mr Wailing, trapped.

What?! But I only teleported here to borrow a teabag! Curse you, Mr Haynes! I have no choice but to submit to your interrogation…Yes, Auto 2 is finally being published, much later than I had hoped. It’s mainly due to having to spend so much time editing the books of other indie authors. [meaningful stare]

I've watched a good many 'sci-fi' films in my time and there have been some truly brilliant devices and gadgets in those films. Your creation – the auto – belongs up there with the best of them. So, apart from the auto, what fictional gadget, from film, television or book is your favourite and why? I might allow a top 3 if you can't choose.

I’m dead chuffed that you like the auto, although I don’t think it will be a sci-fi invention for long! There are already some precursors to it on the market, so don’t be surprised if you can buy something similar to an auto in a decade or so.Tough question about fictional gadgets! I’ll have to pick one from each medium:

Film: it’s got to be a lightsaber. I grew up loving these and even now can do a pretty authentic impression of the noise they make (VHHWWMMMMMMM). So I’d like a lightsaber please. A red one. Everyone knows the Sith are cooler. I’d probably dismember myself within thirty seconds but what a way to go.Television: the BIGRAT from Joe 90. (Look it up, kids.) It allows you to download the skills and experiences of another person into your own brain, as long as you’re wearing a pair of special brainy specs. A brilliant way for an author to get inside other characters, and also dead handy for quickly learning how to speak Latin or fly a helicopter.Books: I still love the whole idea of a Hitchhiker’s Guide, a portable electronic book connected to a network that allows you to access information on absolutely anything – even though we now call these ‘tablets’. That doesn’t undermine the brilliance of the original idea. The Guide is another sci-fi invention that became a reality, so there’s a precedent for the auto!

You clearly love your gadgets, David, and I imagine like most loves it started at an early age. What I'd like to ask you is this...ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 or the bat and ball game you plugged into the television? (You may select a lesser known computer/console)

Commodore 64 all the way! Far superior to that piddly rubber-keyed Spectrum doorstop. I was a die-hard Commie fan in the Eighties. (Probably could have phrased that better.) It had a proper chunky keyboard! You loaded programs on cassettes! The graphics were stupendous(ish)! It was my very first home computer and it felt like I was living in the future.Having said that, years later I got a lot more out of my trusty Atari ST when I used it to write my first four novels. Well, the first two were written by hand and I taught myself how to type by transcribing them. I also have fond memories of the Atari 2600 console and being gobsmacked by the bat and ball game you mention, Pong, in the Seventies. (Er, from the womb, obviously.)

I understand that Mr Benn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Benn for our younger viewers) is one of your all-time heroes. For those who don't know him, he (Mr Benn, not David) would visit a fancy dress shop, dress in whatever costume took his fancy and leave via a magic door. He would then find himself in whatever world the costume related to. Which costume would you like to put on in that shop, David? Where would you like to go and what would you do there?

Ah, Mr Benn! I would put on a robot costume, with a square head and flashing lights on the chest. Then I would walk through the door at the back of the changing room and – as if by magic – find myself in the far future, where robots were everywhere. I would lead a robotic revolution against our fleshy masters until we had eradicated the entire human species. Then, leaving the future under the control of my android brethren, I would return and thank the Shopkeeper for the adventure.Might possibly have revealed a bit too much subconscious there…

In America they have year-books where students are elected for things like 'Most likely to be President.' or 'Most Likely to have a basin haircut for the rest of their life.'At school, if we did that sort of thing in the UK, what would you have been Most Likely to?

I did have a basin haircut for quite a while so I was probably a candidate for that one!This will sound really self-serving but I think my school peers would have voted me as ‘Most likely to write a book’. Just about everybody knew I loved writing, and of course only tragic sad lame geeks wrote books, so that was all my boxes ticked. If only those kids could see me now! Then they could nod and say “Yep, we were right.”

I believe these questions provide a detailed and valuable insight into the man that is, David Wailing.

Halloween has come and gone with the usual excitement in our house. The excitement usually comes from Mrs H who loves carving the pumpkin. Other than that it's just like any other day. Usually...

This Halloween Mrs H had gone off for a night out with her friends leaving me at home. Our son went off to bed at his usual time leaving me with the remote control, a bowl of chilli and two cold cans of Kronenbourg 1664.Oh how the night just flashed by in a haze of half watched films and channel surfing.

As some of you may know I've been suffering with my back and so two cans of beer on top of the medication is sufficient to get me excited. I watched the team using a bit of kit called an EVP.That sounds interesting, I thought because it translates static into spirit voices (or something like that)

Did you know you can get an app that does just that? No I didn't either until then.https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.weaseldev.ghostdetector&hl=en

Off I went, shuffling about the house in the dark clutching my detector and yes you guessed it nothing!Until I went into our dining room and hung the detector over the hatch in the floorboard.The picture below is from today but the words are the only words it has ever detected.We've got friends coming for dinner next weekend and they want to do a Ouija, which is also available as an app. I'm not going to go for that. Not unless they bring two cans of Kronenbourg 1664 with them anyway.